Дата

Автор

Advisor

DRUM DOI

Metadata

Аннотации

Some countries in the world depend on security assurances provided by other countries to maintain security. It makes sense for these countries to accommodate security interests of their defenders. Then, what makes it puzzling is why do these countries sometimes do not act accordingly. This is the research question that the author attempts to answer in this dissertation. Using qualitative means, the author conducts the research utilizing personal diaries, memoirs, archives, and newspapers with a focus on Taiwan that has been viewed as a flashpoint in East Asia. Among the sources, personal diaries of President Chiang Kai-shek are especially helpful in understanding various attempts to recover mainland China by initiating plans for a counter-offensive, the Kuokuang Plan being the most famous one, which is a form of non-accommodation.
The temporal domain of this research is from 1950 to 2008. Four presidents of the Republic of China are examined during this period and they are Chiang Kai-shek, Chiang Ching-kuo, Lee Teng-hui, and Chen Shui-bian. Other presidents such as Yen Chia-kan and Ma Ying-jeou are also touched on, but with limited coverage. Two theories are utilized in this dissertation: alliance politics and presidential tenure. Alliance politics theory is an established one which stipulates that the weaker ally in an alliance is afraid of being abandoned, while the stronger ally concerns about being entrapped in an unwilling war. Presidential tenure theory is a product of my creation through combining existing theories and it expects that presidents of protégés are likely to become non-accommodative in their second terms. Both theories own explanatory power over the cases during the time span in this research. That is to say, when security assurances are robust, Taiwan leaders are more likely to be non-accommodative. In addition, Taiwan leaders are more likely to adopt non-accommodative actions in their second terms of office.